Talk:John J. Stuhr

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Hi, I am writing this for a former professor of mine. He is a well known American Philosopher.

I am a bit confused about a few things, so I am hoping your expertise will help me finish this work soon.

Your put up a purple panner stating that there are three issues that need to be addressed:

1. "This article relies too much on references to primary sources. (April 2017)"

I don't understand this point, this article is about a famous writer, there is no way to explain what he has done without references to primary sources. Why is this problematic? (Pythias83 (talk) 03:59, 20 April 2017 (UTC))

2. This article needs more links to other articles to help integrate it into the encyclopedia. (April 2017).

O.K. I understand the reasoning behind this request, and following your advice I have produced some inbound links and connecting this article to over 40 Wiki articles. Is this sufficient?

3. This article is an orphan, as no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from related articles; try the Find link tool for suggestions. (April 2017) (Pythias83 (talk) 03:59, 20 April 2017 (UTC)) Yes, I agree and understand. So far I have brought in one inbound like from the JSP Wiki Page....will continue to bring in more links. more will follow, Thanks for the Find link tool that looks great! (Pythias83 (talk) 03:59, 20 April 2017 (UTC))

@Pythias83: If this is just an instructor you had a for a class or two, you're probably okay. However, if Stuhr was your advisor, research supervisor, or the like, then you may have a conflict of interest with the subject. In any case, as was noted with the first maintenance template you mentioned above, the article needs to be based on what other people—biographers, scholarly researchers, and the like—have written about Stuhr more than Stuhr's own writings. In simplest terms, any opinion about Stuhr needs to be attributed to the person(s) who hold the opinion. —C.Fred (talk) 20:19, 20 April 2017 (UTC)]

OK, excellent, no conflict of interest. RE: your second point, where you state:

"the article needs to be based on what other people—biographers, scholarly researchers, and the like—have written about Stuhr more than Stuhr's own writings. In simplest terms, any opinion about Stuhr needs to be attributed to the person(s) who hold the opinion. —C.Fred'

Here is my response:

First, the article already is based on what other people have written. It is based on University catalogs, a NYT article, an Encyclopedia of American Philosophy (!!!), scholarly collections, etc.

Second, there are not “opinions” about Stuhr that are being conveyed but simply a faculty account—that Stuhr did this or that this happened at that time or that this book was published on such and such date. A standard way to convey what Stuhr has written or the themes in his writing is to quote from those writings. These are not opinions. They are just facts.

Third, trying to create a compromise here, I have found some additional third-person references I will add:

A) after the following line in the paragraph about Pragmatic Fashions: It reads: "This book advances in part through a large number of paintings and the author’s photographs and poems, suggests that different philosophies be understood as different and multiple personal visions of the world—just as we might see differences in the music of Beethoven and Beyoncé, the paintings of El Greco and Monet, or the writings of Jane Austen and James Baldwin." At the end of this sentence I will add a reference or endnote as follows: Jacquelyn A. K. Kegley, Book Review of Pragmatic Fashions: Pluralism, Democracy, Relativism, and the Absurd, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 06/23/2016: http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/pragmatic-fashions-pluralism-democracy-relativism-and-the-absurd/. Retrieved: 21 April 2017. B)At the end of the last sentence in the paragraph about Genealogical Pragmatism, I will insert a reference/endnote as follows: Cynthia A. Gayman, Book Review of Genealogical Pragmatism: Philosophy, Experience, and Community, Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1999), Penn State University Press, pp. 147-150. C)After the second sentence in the paragraph about Pragmatism and Postmodernism, I will insert a reference/endnote after this sentence: "Stressing the reality of time and change, in Pragmatism, Postmodernism, and the Future of Philosophy, Stuhr focuses on the ways in which these philosophical traditions present us with a Herculean labor to think and live differently in the future." Endnote: Thomas Keith, Review of Pragmatism, Postmodernism, and the Future of Philosophy, Essays in Philosophy, Vol. 7, No. 2 (2007), article 5. D)At the end of the very first paragraph, after this sentence, I will add two additional references for this point, the one now there an the one I am adding: "Revealing his impatience with narrow and academic conceptions of philosophy, his writings make deep aI will add this to endnote—an external review—to 4: “John J. Stuhr, Pragmatic Fashions,” http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?products_id=807756, Indiana University Press. Retrieved 15 April 2017. Michael Tobias, J. Patrick Fitzgerald, and David Rothenberg, “John Stuhr: Prospects for Democracy,” A Parliament of Minds: Philosophy for a New Millennium (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), pp. 180-195.

Thanks for your help on this CFred. I appreciate the help!!!! (Pythias83 (talk) 18:15, 21 April 2017 (UTC))

Original research

Statements such as Throughout his university administrative work, Stuhr has evidenced strong commitment to philosophical pluralism and institutional diversity, a push for growth and an advocacy for philosophy and the humanities, and a determination to make strong faculty appointments and to provide the intellectual space for them to do high-quality work appear to be original research. We are not allowed to draw conclusions from or otherwise interpret primary sources and that appears to be what is going on. We need to find independent sources for things such as that, and reflect those sources rather than editorialise. - Sitush (talk) 07:57, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

OK, this makes sense. I will find the independent sources needed. (Pythias83 (talk) 13:01, 21 April 2017 (UTC))

Thanks. As a general rule of thumb, we should never be citing anything written by the article subject. It is ok to include a list of the subject's publications (or a sample thereof, if there are many). - Sitush (talk) 14:09, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

But there is not consistency here. Check out two other prominent philosopher's pages, which refers and quotes from the authors works:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwame_Anthony_Appiah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_J._Bernstein

And to my mind, it seems unfair to critique one article for doing something many other articles do not do. I don't find consistency here. All other pages that describe scholars cite from the author's primary works. If you need more evidence that (from what I have seen) every article about a great scholars quotes from the scholar's books and articles, let me know. Since there isn't consistency here about how one can proceed, I find the request a bit arbitrary and lacking any standard applied consistently to all pages of this ilk.

Also, upon further reflection concerning your statement above, it is clear to me that my description that begins "Throughout his University ....." is not an editorial comment --it is a statement of fact. This is why there are the references numbered 13-16. In each case—whether a scholarly publication, an official statement from an institution, or an interviewer’s statement of (then) current fact, or the important reference to many years of records in documents by the main professional organization in the field—footnote 16—these are all facts. Nothing is said about whether any of this is good or desirable, or whether something else is better or worse. It is simply stated as a record of commitments that Stuhr has made public in his writing, in interviews, and in strategic plans, and as a matter of results summarized in program development and faculty hires, massive changes in the gender and ethnic make-ups of his departments, etc. Somebody could think this is good or bad, but that is not what is stated here. What is stated is just what is a document multi-year fact. No conclusion is drawn from primary sources: There is no inference. Instead, it is simply a statement of fact about commitments that have been evidenced in Stuhr's actual writings, in interviews, in institutional catalogs and brochures, and in the summary findings of the American Philosophical Association. (Pythias83 (talk) 17:55, 21 April 2017 (UTC))

You cannot use Stuhr's writings etc in this way. You may not like it, but it is the consensus of the Wikipedia community that sourcing must almost always be independent of the article subject. - Sitush (talk) 18:17, 21 April 2017 (UTC)